Giving it up...

Giving up something we really like and use a lot isn't an easy task. Here's our journal entries on giving up one of our "wants" -- as part of one of Energy Diet Challenges

Drawing 3D figures and Exploring Volume

Remember that 3D means that the figure has 3 dimensions: length, width, height (or depth).
To find volume we multiply these dimensions:

volume = length x width x height

Here's tonight's homework, based on what we did in class today:

 If you need to review the online drawing we did in class today, you can click here.

Independent Novel Project Outline (for those who misplaced their's)

 Novel Project Due Dates:

#'s 1-7 due Friday, April 13th

#8 due in class sometime week 16-20

#9 due Monday, April 23rd

 Independent Novel Project: Term 3

You are going to be choosing a novel you would like to read, and explore.

The following project will be mostly completed at school. Reading will take place at home and at school, especially during our designated silent reading time. Time will be given in class to complete some of the written components, but not all.

To begin the project, you will select a novel from the library, classroom, or bookmobile and complete a mini conference with your teacher to ensure the book you have chosen is grade appropriate and challenging. Class time will be set aside for reading conferences where you and the teacher will meet, and the teacher will assess your reading fluency and interpretation of the novel.

Each task must be completed on a piece of loose leaf, and presented in an organized manner. Write in blue or black ink, one side only, double-spaced and note page numbers where supporting information can be found in the text. Please create a cover page for your project as well as a table of contents (label each assignment with the corresponding page number listed). Please be prepared for a final presentation of your project to your classmates. Your project must be put together in the following order:

 Tasks:

1. Give a brief summary of the plot. 1-2 full pages, tell the story. Include 2-5 of the main events and describe what happens at the end.

2. Explain the significance of the title (5-10 sentences). Authors do not choose a title randomly. Usually the title is symbolic in some way.

3. Describe the setting and genre – time period, location, etc. (5-10 sentences)

4. Discuss in 1 full page your ideas about the main character(s). Answer what you like or dislike about them and why they are worthy of praise and/or criticism.

5. In 1 full page, identify what caused a major change in the main character(s) and explain how the character(s) changed. These changes may have been a consequence of choice, a conflict, a display of some outstanding trait like courage, or even a result of events that occur during the novel.

6. In a journal style entry, copy 5 of your favourite phrase/sentences from the book and explain why you chose them.

7. Make up 5 true and false, 5 multiple choice and 5 matching test questions for this novel. Put the correct answers on a separate piece of paper.

8. In 1 full page write a general review of the book. Would you recommend the book? Why or why not? Would you have changed any element of the story (plot, characters, setting, resolution, conflicts, point of view, etc.)?

9. Select and complete 1 creative project that relate to and reflect the main points of your novel. Suggestions: book jacket, character scrap or memory book, theme or symbol collage, diorama, newspaper, character diary, character/scene sketch, menus from the text, comic or political cartoon, song, travel brochure, scene rewrite from a different point of view, movie poster with a cast of stars and justification of your choices, etc. Please run your ideas by me before you start.

 Your project’s assessment will include:

a) Selecting an appropriate novel.

b) Student/Teacher conferences.

c) Complete all of the tasks (some tasks have early due dates and will be shared as the term progresses). 

One Hour Without Power

When you are faced with an hour without power it can be boring, but you can always READ! If we were in 1860’s it would be really HARD because you wouldn’t have any power. Back then you would be making mittens or weeding the garden. I don’t know if I could even survive a DAY without power because we have TV’s, ovens and even computers. If I had to survive a day without power it would be REALLY HARD.

       For our hour without power in class, all we had to do was READ because we were in a small space. A larger outdoor space would allow us to do more activities like play tag. If we didn’t have any books it would be a long hour. With no power at home, all of our main course meals are made in the oven. We could always use the stove, but it would take longer than the oven. We would have to find other ways to cook our meals.

Anyway, I think we would be doing the earth some good if we cut back on the use of power every day! There are things we can do each day that don’t require power usage. Giving up power for one hour each day, is not a huge sacrifice; everyone should give it a try!

submitted by: Jessie Helen

The Classroom Energy Diet Challenge

Wow! Have we been busy working on this challenge! Everything from a logo contest within our own classroom, to researching types of energy, tracking our trash, calculating our water usage, and simply turning things off... we've been immersed in energy use awareness!

Here are the logos designed by our class, with the class' chosen winning logo for our site in the Challenge, designed by Emily! Way to go, guys!

Perhaps the most exciting step thus far in the Challenge has been creating a script for a infomercial on reducing energy. We submitted our script to the contest, and, low and behold, our script was chosen as one of 50 semi-finalists across Canada! That means, we won a video recorder to shoot our infomercial! 

We're going to start shooting before March Break, and , hopefully finish the week after March Break! Once it is finished, we will be needing your help, as the video will be posted on the Energy Diet's Facebook page, and we'll need your "Likes" to win!

To keep updated on our Challenge progress you can check out:
Grade 5/6 Class Challenge

A little game of "What is it?!"

We've been working on descriptive writing in class. I'm trying to get my students to have more creative confidence in their writing! I, nor their classmates, can't be giving them all their ideas all the time. So, I decided to try a "Pull an item from the bag, Hide it, Write about it" activity. It was kind of fun! Here are some examples of their very descriptive writing:

Fraction Practice!

We've been hard at work in our understanding of fractions. We've looked at how to make equivalent fractions and have also started exploring adding and subtracting fractions.

Here are some equivalent fractions links for practice:
http://www.mathplayground.com/visual_fractions.html
http://www.aaamath.com/fra42ax2.htm
http://www.mathsisfun.com/equivalent_fractions.html
http://www.learningplanet.com/sam/ff/index.asp

There is also this website which helps with all kinds of fraction concepts.

To review how to add fractions, you can explore these websites:
http://www.mathplayground.com/fractions_add.html
http://www.math.com/school/subject1/lessons/S1U4L3GL.html
http://www.mathsisfun.com/fractions_addition.html
http://www.aaamath.com/fra66kx2.htm

And, I was wondering... what fraction of our day was spent in awe looking at this today?!

Wow. We're lucky to have this view at our school!

Starting 2012 -- Fractions

Using www.linoit.com we created a word / concept map about fractions today!
Good for reviewing information!

Math Nifty-ness!

We've been working on 2-dimensional geometry in class for the past few weeks.
While working with angles, Richard came up with a cool little "animation" with his hands to represent right angles. This goes hand-in-hand (no pun intended) with the Math Lab we did on angles, as well.



Furthermore, when we were looking at the relationships among the angles in triangles, Riley came up with what we thought was a neat theory on how to calculate the missing angle in a triangle. We tested his theory many times and have proven it to be true of any triangle! Very cool!

We can make math pretty fun in here!

Prejudice Is Something We Can Do Without :: a poem by Rita Joe

Scroll through our thoughts on this poem by the famous Mi'kmaq poet, Rita Joe.

Our Skype Call with Students from Saskatchewan!

This morning we Skyped with a Book Club at a school in Regina, Saskatchewan. The students were grade 4,5 & 6 students. Shayde thought is was "interesting." Lainee thought it was "cool, fun and cool hearing everybody's thoughts." Sidney thought it was "awesome!"

Thank you, Mrs. McMurtry for setting up the Skype 'date' with us! We hope we can do it again sometime!

Reading Buddies @ Rankin School of the Narrows

Reading Buddies @ Rankin School of the N - slide show

Grades Pr-6. Every week. Enjoy.

Our Great Canadian Mail Race!

Where did our letters go? Who's going to win the race? Stay tuned... The Race is on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
View Our Great Canadian Mail Race Destinations in a larger map

Chapters 3 and 4 :: Tuck Everlasting

We have just read chapters 3 and 4.

We are intrigued with this man in the yellow suit.

• Tyler -- "I think he is trying to scheme something..."
• Zoe -- "I thought he was going to kidnap that girl, Winnie!"
• Logan -- "I think the guy in yellow is going to help in some way..."
• Jessie Helen -- "When we saw the yellow guy... in the suit... he was asking lots of questions, so I thought he was going to do something..."
• Mikayla -- "I think he might be a spirit..."
• Jon -- "I think he might be looking for information."
• Richard -- "What if it's [the man in the yellow suit] Tuck?!?!?"
• Sarah -- "I thought maybe he lived there before them, and maybe his house had burned down or something.
• Shayde -- "I think he's evil!"
• Neve -- "I think he was just hungry!"
• Matthew-- "I think he might be an elf because when he was leaving he was humming the song/melody"

 And... about that song...

• Tyler -- "It reminded me about Mae Tuck's music box."
• Jessie Helen -- "I didn't really understand it. She said she remembered it. How would she remember it? How are they connected?"
• Mikayla -- "I think the man in the yellow suit is Tuck because he heard the music before..."
• Logan -- "I think the music box is Mae Tuck because she said she was going to walk through the woods."

Questions for other classes reading Tuck Everlasting:

1. Who do you think is the man in the yellow suit?
2. How do you like the book so far?
3. What is your favourite chapter so far?
4. Why do you think the mom is always so mean to Winnie?
5. How are you keeping track of what you're reading? 

Starting the Global Read Aloud 2011 :: Tuck Everlasting ::

Today we started the book Tuck Everlasting as part of the Global Read Aloud Project.
We've read the Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2.


Our thoughts?

• Mikayla -- "I've figured out why it's called 'Tuck Everlasting'! They've looked the same for 87 years!"
• Logan -- "I think the book is going to be pretty awesome... and Hi!"
• Lainee -- "I think the book is going to be very interesting!"
• Emily -- "It's a very interesting, good book!"
• Jon -- "Pretty Good book!"
• Neve -- "It's creepy"
• Jessie Helen -- "It's scary; the woods are scary!"
• Zoe -- "Tuck is weird."
• Shayde -- "It's awkward..."

These are our initial thoughts. Please stay tuned as we blog about the rest of the chapters!

(If you are participating in the Global Read Aloud, could you please leave us a comment? Thanks.)

First day, first post of a new year!

Welcome back to school!
What could we have done that was blog-worthy on the very first day of school?


Today we got into the routine of our silent reading time each day. As a follow-up to our silent reading (where you could hear a pin drop, and students were asking for more time to read!) our crazy teacher handed out baggies that contained play-doh, a pencil, a piece of lined paper and a piece of unlined paper. We were given a number and if we had the number 1, we had to write about what we read:

If we were given the number 2, we had to draw what we were reading about:

And finally, if we were given the number 3, then we had to create something that showed what we were reading about:

And, as their teacher, I just have to say... these kids are impressive! LOL! Right from the first day!

Hope you all enjoyed the day! Welcome Back!

Mira Provincial Park Field Trip

On June 9th, we went on a field trip to Mira Provincial Park. This day of activities and informtaion booths was set up by the Department of Natural Resources. Our tour guide, Tracey, works for Dept of Natural Resources in Halifax, and had never been to Cape Breton before!

Thankfully, we didn't require the services of CB Search & Rescue!

Ready. Aim. FIRE!

Here are some snapshots of our trip:

Our first station: Geocaching!

These firefighters were leaving on June 13th to fight the wildfires in Alberta. They told us about "Mountain Money"!

The race is on!

Nope. This wasn't lunch.



Learning about tents & tenting



It's all about place...

A quick lesson on reading directions, led to a lesson on knowing one's mailing address...which led to a lesson on filling out forms... which led to a lesson on creating one's own business... which led to a lesson on creating logos and business cards... which led to this picture being taken. The business cards were awesome! If you ever need to make cute, professional looking, personalized business cards, you can check out: www.degraeve.com/business-cards/

This photo was the one that Andy was using for his business "kickflip" -- a skateboard accessory company.

And this one is Riley's image for his company:

Rockin' the Lip Sync at School with a Message

Here we are performing "Loser Like Me" from Glee as part of the Spring Fling Lip Sync afternoon!
We picked this song because it's fun and it has a good message. The message is that it's not ok for people to call others 'losers', but in the end, those that do are essentially "losers" themselves.

No, we weren't robbed!

These two characters were among the many that came to our classroom this week. They weren't robbers... more like "Robbers Munsch".

We've been reading and re-reading and exploring Robert Munsch books as a way to improve our understanding of how authors use words and punctuation to engage the reader. Each student read a variety of his books and had to pick a favourite book to share with our grade 2 reading buddies, and also had to prepare a presentation on the book.

The presentations were so well done that I ended up laughing, groaning, and even had tears in my eyes as the students gave their all to present their favourite books. The two characters in the picture above are from Robert Munsch's book "Boo!". 

I'm so proud of you guys for doing such a fabulous job with your presentations. It is a teaching moment I will remember forever, and something I will surely do again in the future!

Thank you for making my job fun!